Government vows Renters’ Rights Act will tackle rental discrimination

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/08/2026 – 10:22
3 months bank statements showing proof and source of income is an essential requirement.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 07/08/2026 – 13:48
I now ask for 12 months bank statements and wage slips. This covers seasonal workers who tend to quote their best months earnings.

Reply to the comment left by The_Maluka at 07/08/2026 – 13:53
Good point.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 10:22
If you ask all applicants for a praticular document, knowing that some have no access to that document and you don’t allow them to provide alternative evidence, you are deliberately discriminating against those that cannot provide it. In this case that includes many tenants on benefits. You should expect a civil penalty in the near future.

Reply to the comment left by NewYorkie at 07/08/2026 – 13:48
It is potentially a useful requirement as it gives you employer details and NI number, but it discriminates unless you also collect tax returns. In the wake of the financial crisis the banks changed their rules such that everybody had to provide 3 months bank statements if they wanted to get a mortgage. If you were self-employed/in a partnership you could provide the last two years of tax returns. But what this meant was if you were starting up in business as a self-employed person or in a partnership then you couldn’t get a mortgage even if you had assets.

The way around this is to ask everybody for the last two years of tax returns and evidence of savings (assets): Whether they provide this to you is up to them: But if you don’t ask then you are discriminating against pensioners and self-employed people or people in partnerships who have children.

On the usefulness or otherwise of three months of wage slips, because of the last two disastrous and incompetent labour budgets a lot of people are being laid off at the moment: Just because they have been paid for the last three months it doesn’t mean they’ll be paid in three months time.

On the other hand, if an employer were to guarantee the rent for say 12 months (this would need an authorised signatory such as a director or officer and you would need to subject the business to a credit check) then this tells you that the business values the employee and wants to keep the employee: So even if the employee loses a job you know that this is a valuable employee who is likely to get another job. The other advantage is that if the employer doesn’t actually pay the rent then there is no PAYE benefit in kind….no increase in the tax bill to either the employer or the employee.

A lot of landlords are going to prefer a family member to be a guarantor for understandable reasons. But Rachel Reeves increased employers’ national insurance contributions and dropped the level at which they kicked in, with devastating effects on the UK economy. So at the moment, a potential benefit to the employee that has no tax consequences is more relevant than it was.

Of course in order not to discriminate, in your policy on guarantors you would need to allow an employer, a family member, or the housing benefits people to guarantee the rent. But if the housing benefits people were the guarantor then you would need written confirmation from them that the tenant was eligible for their benefits, and also that the housing benefits people were taking all responsibility for continued eligibility for benefits throughout the period of the tenancy (which could be forever as all tenancies are now rolling tenancies).

By asking for tax returns and evidence of savings you wouldn’t be discriminating against anybody. The upside is that with these details and the National Insurance number you would have more chance of recovering unpaid debt or selling the debt on.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 07/08/2026 – 14:52
Every group of tenants needs to be asked for the same details at the same time in order not to discriminate. Some will have access to some benefits and not others (e.g. blind people); some will have self-employed or partnership tax returns; and some will have wage slips. But the wage slips tell you very little about the ability to pay rent over the longer term and now all tenancies are rolling tenancies; the longer term is something that you now need to consider before giving the keys to anybody.

Labour banned up front payment of rent and this discriminates against pensioners with low income but with savings, unless you ask for evidence of savings. Not allowing a self-employed person or partner with children to provide a tax return discriminates against tenants with children.

Everybody has to be asked for the same information up front and you won’t be able to make a decision on which is the lowest risk tenant until you have all the details. If some tenants don’t provide you with the details that you need that’s up to them…it’s their choice. You don’t know anything at all about the tenant until they have sent you all the information that you need to make an informed decision but the tenants who really want the property are going to send it to you. Previously tenants who really wanted the property could offer more than the asking price…..but labour banned that and now you can’t accept that even if the tenant offers it.

Clearly everybody needs to provide a national insurance number: Even people on Universal Credit get these allocated to them.

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 07/08/2026 – 15:06
Ok, good luck with that approach. There’s nothing more I can say.

Reply to the comment left by DPT at 07/08/2026 – 16:09
There may not be much you can say although I acknowledge that you are right in that landlords now have to be very careful what they record and they definitely shouldn’t record for unsuccessful tenants “…because they are on benefits…” …because they have children…” “because they are blind.” They should instead record that the successful tenants more easily satisfied the affordability checks: The landlord does not have to provide details of the successful tenants to the council or anybody else because this would breach data protection legislation and without details of the successful tenants in MOST circumstances the agencies you refer to will struggle to prove that you discriminated if there is a standard application form for all tenants.

The exception is this: Because the Labour Renters Rights Act stops landlords from accepting more than the advertised rent and has also restricted rent increases, this means that all landlords and their agents now have to push up rents to the maximum upon first letting and at every rent review. The real effect of the potential £7K fine for discrimination that you have referred to is this: The agencies that you refer to COULD find out that you had given a discount to the successful tenants…and so what the £7K plus fine actually means is that NO landlord can now ever risk giving a discount on the rent.

The Labour Renters Rights Act is a disaster…..it is a TERRIBLE piece of legislation.

It is government that is putting rents up.

We have seen the results of implementing draconian PRS laws in Scotland and parts of throughout Europe and Scotland

Reply to the comment left by Beaver at 14:15
Re your mention of pets. And the tenant screening process a lot of tenants, Landlords (and even agents who really should know this stuff) don’t seem to know that the new legislation re not being able to unreasonably refuse pets only applies once the tenancy starts and not during application process….so you can refuse an applicant on the grounds they have a pet